After viral video criticising Helen Joseph, GP Health Dept dismisses claims its hospitals are shoddy

JOHANNEBSURG - The Gauteng Department of Health has dismissed claims that its hospitals are in a poor state after a complaint about patients being treated like cockroaches at the Helen Joseph Hospital.

Former broadcaster Tom London, who is admitted there, detailed his experience at the facility in a video that has been widely circulated online.

"The doctors that run around here treat the patients like cockroaches. I haven’t seen one doctor in our ward that walks to a patient in our ward and goes, ‘Good morning, Mr So-and-so, how are you?' Nothing. They treat the patients with absolute disdain and disrespect. I’m talking about this from the young Wits medical student, all the way up the chain at this hospital."

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London said he spent 48 hours without being seen by a doctor.

“Yesterday, some young, blonde, white doctor comes to my bed, looks at me, ignores me, starts writing in my file for 10 minutes, says absolutely nothing, and then announces that Dr Pillay is no longer my doctor, I’ve got a new doctor.

“I asked why, and she said that he handed his less complicated patients over to someone else and she gave me the doctor's name, I can’t remember. I haven’t seen that doctor for 48 hours, so now I haven’t had a doctor for 48 hours.”

The department's spokesperson, Motalatale Modiba, has hit back at claims that the hospital infrastructure's had not improved.

“Helen Joseph itself and other facilities, they are part of the maintenance programme that we are currently rolling out,” he said.